It is a late night, they wait in the living room, dozing off, waiting for the child to come home. They have waited so long.
They got up early one day, walked in the dark to the top of the mountain and waited for the sunrise, slowly filling the sky with colors.
He sat there at the table in the restaurant, sipping on a glass of wine, waiting for her to show up, that creeping feeling that he would be stood up, yet again. He had waited so long for that certain some one…
They go to sleep fighting to keep their eyes open, hoping to catch Santa Claus, they have waited so long.
They wait for him to wake up from his comma…
They wait for the lab results to come back….
They cleaned up the house, the food is ready, soon the long awaited guests will arrive. They wait.
They wait, they watch, they keep awake, hoping, expecting, getting ready…
Life. All that waiting. All that looking ahead. All those wakeful sleepless nights. All that hope and expectation. All that disappointment.
Have you ever waited for some one?
Have you ever been stood up? Disappointed.
Have you hoped, expected, longed, dreaded?
Sometimes hope is all that keeps us going as the waiting draws on and on.
Advent. The season of waiting, of watchfulness, of expectation, of staying awake.
We begin the Christian year today. Today is New Year’s Day.
And we begin by looking ahead to the end, the goal, the purpose, the fulfillment of creation with the return of the King.
We are given visions of things ending and beginning, visions of the time being at hand and of the time being unknown, unknowable.
The nature of this return and judgment of this restoration and Jubilee, is heavily laden with visionary imagery, with a dream like fluidity that defies definition.
What do we do with this visionary sense of time, of that day and hour when there is an ending, a cessation, and a new beginning that fulfills all that came before?
What do we do with it?
The last three weeks of the Christian year and the first week of the Christian year is when we give time and attention to these final things. Every year I feel like I have four weeks to steal back this visionary mysterious hope from fundamentalists who turn it into a way to denigrate everything and everyone they find disagreeable. All these visions of time coming to fruition, of time having a sense of fullness are so often reduced to merely “God is going to get you.”
Something beautiful and strange is turned into something paltry and resentful.
The Advent of God’s Kingdom.
It hallows all of time, it sanctifies every moment, it transfigures this day with a sense of watchfulness, of paying attention, of looking for more than can be seen.
Of hoping and trusting that this life will soon have a long awaited guest, that the mortal things that make up creation will soon overflow with the eternity of God.
This cup is about to run over.
So how do we live with this hopeful watchfulness?
I think for us our busy consumer culture has made us guilty of a serious idolatry that has filled us with the lie that time is money, that time has a value that can be precisely measured.
I think the visionary hope of Advent fills us with a different sense of time, that time is sacred, that time is of God, that time is a gift from God, that time belongs to God.
Time is sacred, time is the chalice into which God pours his blood.
This is what we watch for, this is what keeps us awake, determination not miss one precious second of wonder.
Time isn’t money. That’s idolatry.
Time is sacred, time is for holy things, a holy waste of time that can’t be quantified or assigned value added. Time is an extravagant and playful gift into which God is being revealed. So keep an eye out.
We really don’t want to miss it.